The present invention is in the field of vehicle junction box busbar terminals.
Current press-fit busbar terminals in vehicle junction boxes are provided as vertical arms, adapted to receive mating terminals from components plugged into the junction box, such as mini-fuses, relays, and the like. The vertical arrangement of the press-fit terminals allows the vertically oriented component terminals to be mated in an axial press-fit. However, junction boxes are becoming increasingly crowded, with more components required for more complex vehicle systems. The vertical press-fit terminals and their associated covering structure tend to give the junction box an overall height which is undesirably large for current vehicle packaging requirements.
The upper ends of other types of vertical terminals often require the addition of female-female terminal adapters housed in xe2x80x9cpedestalxe2x80x9d structure to provide adequate electrical and mechanical connection with the component terminals. These adapters and their pedestals further increase height, as well as cost and complexity.
Junction boxes typically contain several stacked layers of busbars and insulation plates, resembling a sandwich. Busbars on lower-level insulation plates penetrate through slots in upper layers of insulation plates into uppermost structure such as a relay pedestal in order to receive a component plugged into the junction box. It is often necessary to provide xe2x80x9cjumperxe2x80x9d connections between different layers of busbars and insulation plates, achieved by providing electrical connections between busbar ends protruding from the edge of the busbar/insulation plate sandwich. These jumper connections add further complexity to the junction box and are relatively expensive.
Another problem with current press-fit busbar terminals is that they inherently waste metal. Only the terminal end of the vertical leg portion actually makes electrical connection; the remainder simply gives the terminal end enough height to reach the connection.
The present invention is a flat (horizontal) press-fit busbar terminal that lies flat against an associated insulation plate in a junction box. The terminal end of the busbar is slotted to receive the blade-like male terminals of junction box components such as micro-relays, mini-fuses, iso-relays, and the like in a press-through friction fit. The terminal end is accordingly located over a slot-like blade receiving aperture in the insulation plate. The vertical component terminal itself can function as a layer-to-layer xe2x80x9cjumperxe2x80x9d passing through the terminal ends of two or more inventive flat terminals on stacked insulation plate layers.
The invention greatly reduces the overall height of the junction box by eliminating the need for protruding plastic structures such as relay pedestals from the inner terminal cover. The amount of busbar material is also reduced by using the vertical connector from the electrical component as the extension needed to reach a particular electrical connection on a particular insulation plate layer.
Several different possible embodiments of flat press-fit terminals are illustrated, although it has been discovered that the basic two-fingered slotted terminal in common vertical use can be used in flat (horizontal) fashion in the present invention and still provide connection with the vertical component terminals in a simple press-fit insertion.
These and other features and advantages of the invention will become apparent upon further reading of the specification in light of the accompanying drawings.